be expanded to other areas of mclaren park, as well as other parks in san francisco. this feels like a win-win for our city and for the workers. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. david, jeff, michael carlin, commissioner arsed. >> good morning commissioners. david de la torre, local 261. and on behalf of my father i want to thank you everybody present in support of this resolution. commissioner tom harrison opened up with being one of the fortunate ones under the mentorship of my father. i got to say, i too, have been fortunate to be mentored by my father. i had a certain indoctoration into the labor movement. as a previous board member of the bbc. we used to meet monthly on a

saturday at the village what they call the village. the board consisted of some of the residents, and the stories that they used to tell as far as the bloodshed and the violence within that community which made it a despondent community with such potential. it was not even newsworthy and that is what bothered me the most. i would heard this, but not on the news, and that is due to the lack of opportunities out there in the community. i am the current chair of the phillip institute center and through our efforts in the highly skilled workforce development and the opportunities that we're opening up, it gives a sense of pride and not only ownership,

but value, worth, self-worth, for the youth that we are mentoring and pushing through these programs. at the end of it they have a skillset that will help them get into -- whether it be the private or the public sector -- careers. now as mario de la torre's son who came here with limited opportunity and more importantly the unions and laborers who helped to organize -- and offered -- organized and offered training. one of them being english as a second language, which helped to further our members' careers. and so on behalf of my father,

i am here to encourage you to support this resolution. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good morning commissioners, my name is jeff armstrong and i'm the director of the northern california laborers apprentice program and here to speak in favor of the training academy. the laborers and the city of san francisco have had many joint labor-management apprenticeship programs that are successful and this is the next step in the next evolution in getting young men and women trained and getting them the economic opportunities that so often comes with the training. appreciate your support. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, michael, commissioner arse and if there

is anyone who would like to speak, if you could move forward so we know you are interested. >> i'm michael carlin the deputy general manager and chief executive officer for the public utilities commission and i'm here today to report out on march 10th our commission took the same resolution and passed it unanimously. why did we do that? wewy did it because we saw it as another opportunity for us to develop a workforce for the future. we are already investing in many activities developing what we would consider to be utility workers for the future and this is just another tool in our toolbox. we have apprenticeship program for stationary engineers and would like to see other programs for other classifications as well. we would support that you pass the resolution today and i would be glad to answer any questions. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good morning commissioners. joshua arse, i am honored to

serve as president of the san francisco commission on the environment. i want to thank you for everything that you are doing here today. commissioners, commissioner harrison, president buell, love the orange tie. it's a popular color today. [laughter ] >> not by extent. accident. >> we're very excited at the environment department about this because this helps synthesize what the community is all about. you take gleneagles and their team and take the business sector and take the environment and then you have something truly incredible, something so pep. you have sustainability. sustainability of communities and apart from just the ability to work with community members, i see folks from the phillip randolph institution are here and obviously the laborers and

partners from the building trades coming to do this and working with your general manager and our department is really excited because there is something that we haven't talked about a lot today, but i wanted to put out. there we have the chance not just to move the community workforce agenda, but the environmental agenda and the environmental conservation and stewardship agenda. we voted to endorse this proposal at the environment commission for all of the reasons stated, but also because we have the chance to work with the puc, your shop, the environment to do a couple of really important environmental pilot ideas of sustainable golf and bring down the amount of water used in the association of golf and pesticides. when we do is track pesticide usage is one of the programs that we have. when there are golf events we often see because of the

requirements around the pga, in terms of what golf courses are required to look like, to be camera-ready, tiger woods-ready all of these different components we see pesticide usage spike just a little bit. so at our department, what we are looking forward to doing with rec and park, with partis in this program, in this groundbreaking effort at the mario de la torre job-training center at gleneagles we can pilot new ways to demonstrate to the pga you can have camera-ready golf, pga-ready golf, tournament-ready golf and bring down the amount of pesticides required. with the community workforce this will set the stage for golf around the country couldn't support it more. thank you. >> next speaker and again for the folks that just came in, if you want to speak on this item, if you could just move up to this table. if you don't, don't worry about it. go ahead.

>> good morning commissioner buell, president buell, commissioners, general manager ginsburg, i want to lend my voice to the speakers who came before me and associate myself with the comments made before me. i know of mario de la torre's legacy and his work is at every level of government today and beyond. and i can't think of a better and more worthy naming for this academy. i can't tell you how proud i am to be associated with this endeavor. i did not get into the leased at gleneagles ten years ago to change livers. i did it to save a golf course that i played at when i was young that afforded me accessible golf as a recreation. through programs like the first tee, we have hosted thousands of young children from the

surrounding neighborhoods to have their first green grass experience at gleneagles and i have seen in the last eight years people turning into some pretty good golfers, but more importantly, these young people turn into very good people with great skills in dealing with all the teachers of the first tee. and i believe that this training academy is going offer the same type of opportunity for thousands of people within the community to have career paths in and around the types of work that happen at golf courses, landscaping, ipm, aboro culture light building construction trades. this will be something after i am done with this project at gleneagles it will be among top of my list of accomplishments in san francisco and i hope it's up there with yours as well department point of view. i'm really looking forward to it. it's an exciting time and things at gleneagles are moving along briskly and comments are

the best we have heard in terms of conditions and despite the drought, we expect that to continue. with the academy launching shortly we expect to add another great reason for us to be proud that we are doing this project on behalf of all of san francisco. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> emilio. >> good morning, mr. president. members of the commission. director ginsburg. my name is emilio cruz, the assistant general manager of infrastructure for the puc and associated with this endeavor being on the committee. i will say that i love working at the puc not only because of all the work that we do that is important for the environment, but the focus that we have on community and the work that we do. i'm responsible for the $9 billion capital program, $7 billion of which will be spent right here in san francisco on our wastewater program. it would not only be a failure, but a complete shame if in

investing $7 billion in san francisco that we don't create opportunities and jobs for our local residents to support our local communities. so that end, it doesn't happen by itself. i often in the circles here, the expression that a rising tide floats all boats, that doesn't work if your boat has a hole in it or if you are anchored down. the reality is that a good economy does float boats, but we have to make sure that everybody's boat is sail-ready. we have to make sure that everybody has the opportunities. we will generate many, many jobs as we invest these billions of dollars, but if we don't take the time now to make our community ready to take advantage of the jobs we as a city have failed. i'm here to voice my support for the program and any such program that gets our community prepared to take advantage to participate in this growing economy. thank you. >> thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to speak? would you like to speak?

come on up. >> good afternoon. my name is desheila nixon and i'm the chair of local 261 labor public employee committee and here to support the effort that the laborers are putting forth with the city and county of san francisco to create pre-apprenticeship at gleneagles. this is something that is missing from the components that we currently have in place. we don't have a way to reach out to people that don't understand what "horticulture" is people already know what this opportunity is and to have the opportunity to reach out to individuals who don't understand what "horticulture" is, i think gleneagles is the perfect place for us to start with having pre-apprenticeship. thank you. >> thank you. >> any other speakers? come on up. >> good morning.

my name is laura flynn an outreach specialist at phillip randolph institute. we represent youth and programs that create more opportunities for them. thank you. >> thank you. >> come on up if you want to speak. perfect. thank you. >> hi. my name is ramona carlie from the a. phillip randolph institute and apr is in support of the job-training academy at greneagle and apr stands for growth. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. good morning >> my name is dolores and i'm from the a. phillip randolph and apr stand for opportunity and in support job-training

academy. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hi, my name is mars yellin thompson from a. phillip randolph institute. we are supportive of keeping gleneagle going and jobs going also. i'm in the training at gleneagles apr stands for careers. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker please. >> hello. my name is charles thompson, from the apr. >> can i get you to speak into the mic a little more? >> okay. >> thank you. >> i'm here in support of gleneagle. apr stands for community. >> thank you. >> next speaker.

>> hi my name is curt grime and i'm the program manager for the a. fillim randolph apr is a community-based organization that works with familyed withs sunnydale and all of san francisco housing authority locations we see gleneagle as a perfect seting for career development in multiple ways. in addition to skill development, course itself is centered at an inspirational location. fabulous views there. last summer some of our kids had the opportunity to learn how to swing a golf club for the first time. they were introduced to math and physics concepts by simply hitting a ball off the green. we applaud your efforts, we supported the mario de la torre training academy at the

gleneagles golf course. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to speak? >> good morning commissioners, brightline defense project and you have heard me talk about gleneagle nasts in the past and of course, i want to talk generally with the environmental justice theme and the environment commission for instance has been able to allay some of the concerns around pesticide and water usage. when you have a golf course like this, something that is affordable and creates social and economic opportunities for the southeast sector of the city, that makes such a program invaluable, i hope you support it. thank you. >> thank you.. >> anyone else?

vince. >> good morning commissioners and good morning general manager ginsburg, i think it's important note a few things. no. 1 it's not just about the laborers, but about the unions and trades to work on something and develop something together that benefits the community. so there are two things happening here. we'ring asking to launch an academy, but also targeting a particular community, jobs now workers. what we want to do is link folks to private work opportunities. director mentioned that earlier and in terms of creating career pathways that don't right now exist , it's one thing to give a man a job or a fish and it's not thing to give them a career or teach them to fish and that is what we proposed to do with your help. i'm always honored to speak before this commission because this commission has accomplished the most, whether you are talking about hank, or talking about the fields or talking about prop b, whether you are talking about the

arboretum, and that is made this commission -- in my mind it's the pinnacle of this movement because we have everybody on board talking about the san francisco housing authority, the department of the environment, et cetera. let's not just check the box and say we support it. let's make sure that every time we see a budget, what is in that budget for apprenticeship? what is in the budget for pre-apprenticeship? that is what we're asking the commission to do to continue the move the conversation forward. because we really aim to change lives. we really aim to change the community. well really aim to change this land. we want to look at harden park golf course, the no. 1 public golf course, thank you, phil, maintained by the laborers and trades. we want to look at the course and gleneagles in the southeast side of san francisco, which

often times is underserved and underrepresented and undervalued and underappreciated. we're going to take that course together through our collective efforts and we're going make that the no. 1 private/public course nine-hole in the country. that is our goal, but we need your help to work on that. i appreciate very, very much that you would hear us all today. i know margaret -- are you going to make a report? i don't know, oh, tom did. so i'm asking to you please support this resolution. please go down this road together with us, with the other city departments and please always be a friend to labor, organized labor and the community workforce. thank you very much. >> is there anyone else who would like to make public comment on this item? being none, public comment is closed. commissioner buell. >> mr. ginsburg. >> thank you, commissioners. i will throw my hat in the ring. it's tough to follow brother courtney at the mic, but i will give it a shot.

we're very proud to support this. it touch on some very cornerstone themed for our department and frankly our city that have been talked about today. i will try to summarize them. first is workforce development. obviously, there is probably no more important theme in our city right now than making sure that the people who live here, that the communities had a professional development opportunities and as was said we want to not just give a job, but a career path. with 261 and internally with our organization, we have done some great work with our apprenticeship program and the captain program and there is really a workforce pipeline in park maintenance that is terrific. where this summer we'll recognize 300 kids into our system and into our programs like the teen outdoor experience. there are many who will end up

working for recreation and park for a career, but the piece missing as was mentioned today is the job-ready entry level aspect of what we do we're very proud that we bring in hundreds of people every year for entry-level work, but as discussed today, folks are coming in without the proper development and skill development that they need to succeed with us or after they finish their service with us and these are limited-term appointments. we want to make sure whether it's a job in city government or in the private sector, this program accomplishes all of that and we're very proud of. it the second key theme for our agency is partnership. we talk about this all the time at our commission and at our agency that we can't do it alone and we need partners. that is how this country's best park system has been built through partnerships. this one has just tremendous, tremendous community partners whether it's 261 or apri or

brightline defense, fellow agency partners, d.o.e., puc, dpw, the pga tour and in labor, the building trades and 261, which really deserves a lot of credit for leading effort and all of our private sector developers, too. this has got all of the aspects of partnership that really is sort of the theme of our agency and makes us successful. lastly, it touches on a really important recreational activity, golf. and making sure that our golf courses continue to thrive and this they are environmental sustainable is really important. and, in fact, today, our ipm linda alvarez is traveling up to sacramento with a couple of members of our staff who are receiving from cal/epa and the department of pesticide regulation and ipm innovator award for our organic use of

pest management and management and techniques. many of those are being applied to our golf courses, so we need to provide this recreational activity. because it is fabulous and accessible, particularly in the southeastern part of town and we need to do it with less water and more organic techniques and this program touches on all of these and for those reasons has department's support. >> thank you. seeing no other comments from commissionersly make a comment and ask commissioner harrison to make the motion. i was impressed by the wide display of support not only for the program, but for naming the academy after mario de la torre. i think mario's family should be very proud of that and it represents the best of all of

us. secondly, i would like to say thanks to our very well-read secretary. i was made aware that today's new york times has three independent stories that support what we are doing today. in the industry and government need to train more workers credentials not diplomas are what count for many job openings and public and private investment in job training is needed. that is all in today's new york time and we're on the cutting each other because of all you do. thank you, commission harrison. >> i would move that the commission adopts the resolution no, ma'am the gleneagles job-training academy the mario de la torre training academy at gleneagles golf course. >> second. >> it's been moved and second. all those in favor, say aye? >> aye. >> unanimous. thank you very much. [ applause ]

did we get mr. courtney's name for the? record? i don't think he introduced himself -- we'll give a few minutes for the room to clear for those who don't want to endure the rest of the meeting.

>> we are now continuing. we are on item no. 3 the general manager's report.

>> thank you commissioners. just a couple of announcements. i did want to take a moment this morning starting off the meeting to remember a dear friend of the rec and park department, joe leonardi, who was the president of the crocker amazon bofi ball club who passed away last month. joe grew up in the city and was an unwavering champion of the sport/game of bocce club members. he will be missed, but his legacy of love of game, love of sport and love of camaraderie.

i would like to bring our team to the commission next month. they are traveling to sacramento right now to receive the ipm innovator award from the california department of pesticide regulation. with more than 220 park and over 4,000 acres of space, it did require anne or innovation, creative and dedication and a deft touch in eradicating pests from our system while protecting our environment and we do that very well both on our golf courses and everywhere and i look forward to sharing more about that in an upcoming meeting. the international day of happyness. san francisco, the san francisco recreation and park department is very happy to join the coast-to-coast celebration of the international day of happiness, tomorrow march 20th and in honor of the day, the coit tower and the empire building

will be lit yellow to support the building of a happier and healthy planet. this is a united nations-led effort sharing in the belief that happiness is a cause and universal right for governments everywhere if we are to evolve into a brighter world. and because parks make people happy, we decided to sign on to this effort. so this friday, march 20th, light up yellow, wear yellow and show us how happy you feel by sharing a photo in your favor park with the following hashtag # happy day and # sf rec and park. i'm not kidding about this. red tricycles has named its top indoor swimming pools for 20 1

and and hamilton, safa and north beach were among the selections. this recognition is testament to the hard work our staff has put into making our pool programs some of the best and i want to thank bob and jim and our entire aquatic staff for a job well-done. summer isaround the corner, as you heard earlier and featuring a wide array of more than 80 summer camps including our traditional camps like silver tree and pine lake and our skateboarding and rec and park has something for everyone. registration begins at 10:00 a.m. on saturday, march 21st online at sf rec online.org. for more information or to browse our catalog today, visit sfrecpark.org and for many parents